Media.

William Loeb's Ghost Still Runs Manchester Union Leader

January 15, 2000|By Ellen Barry, Boston Globe.

Nineteen years ago, when the fiery publisher William Loeb died, his widow, Nackey, emerged from mourning to make a promise in his front-page editorial spot: "Bill Loeb will live because the Union Leader will live."

Nackey Loeb died Jan. 8 at the age of 75, passing control of the Union Leader of Manchester and the New Hampshire Sunday News to employees her husband had picked before his death. In his own editorial, publisher Joe McQuaid promises to carry out her wishes, just as she had promised to carry out her husband's.

Principal among the Loebs' wishes was the guarantee that the Union Leader remain independently owned, despite "plenty of interest" from newspaper conglomerates over the years, McQuaid said.

Under William Loeb, the Union Leader threw its enormous weight behind some candidates while declaring war on others, such as Sen. Edmund Muskie, whose bid for the presidency faltered under Loeb's invective. For 35 years, William Loeb imbued the paper with an outright partisanship that David Moore, a former University of New Hampshire political science professor, described as "almost 19th Century." News stories were made to fall into line with arch-conservative editorials. Even those who disagreed with Loeb's positions -- such as the no-tax pledge he built into presidential politics -- said he transformed the state.

"We still can't have an honest discussion of (the no-tax pledge) because of William Loeb, and he's been dead for two decades," said Mike Pride, editor-in-chief of the Concord Monitor, a more liberal competing daily. "Politicians are afraid of the ghost of William Loeb."

Under Nackey Loeb's watch, the Union Leader lost her husband's vitriolic editorials, but improved its reporting, said readers from the political world. Today's paper may not be the kingmaker it was in the 1970s, but, said Republican political consultant David M. Carney, "people know they have to get their p's and q's together when they go into the Union Leader."

Pat Buchanan called Nackey Loeb his "godmother" after she endorsed him in the 1996 Republican presidential primary. Loeb was a vociferous critic of President George W. Bush.

Loeb had used a wheelchair since she was injured in a 1977 auto accident, and retired for health reasons last May. She tapped as her successor McQuaid, a third-generation newspaperman who arrived at the paper as a 15-year-old copy boy and never left. McQuaid said he also had a warm personal relationship with Nackey Loeb, who "played an immense part in my growth as a human being."